Area Eyes Bigger Part Of Picture

County's Film, Tv Talent Pool Growing

WEST PALM BEACH - — Betty Bowden, jaunty in her straw hat, stood before the camera and recited her statistics:

"My name is Betty Bowden, I'm 5'-2'', 110 pounds."She bobbed to the right and to the left to show her profile.

It's called a slate for a casting call and it may not sound like much. But it's one way to get into pictures, or commercials anyway, as almost 50 people attending a seminar sponsored by the Florida Television and Motion Picture Association learned on Saturday.

And more and more people are signing up for the seminars - from West Palm Beach resident Bowden, 74, to Boca Raton resident Michelle Bonder, 14.

The biggest challenge facing Palm Beach County and even the state's ability to compete with California and New York for film and television business is developing the talent pool.

The pool is getting bigger, said John Reitzammer, Florida Entertainment Commission executive director. Florida residents now make up at least half the production crews. It's more difficult to gauge the number of local actors.

"It's easier for us to deal with the technical side of business," Reitzammer said. "There's not a lot else we can do, other than to make sure there are roles. Sometimes that's a problem because casting is done outside the state. But 60 [to) 80 percent of people working on the production are Floridians and they've got damn good jobs."

Florida still plays second fiddle in the area of acting, says Ilse Earl, owner of Miami Acting Studio and a teacher at the FMPTA seminar.

"But as talent, we are really confined to day players and secondary roles," she says. "Until we have agents here with stables of name players, we take second place. We have a very good talent pool. It can hold its own, were it not for the lack of name players.''

Palm Beach County is working on developing home-grown talent with a magnet program at Palm Beach Gardens High School and a film and television production program at Palm Beach Community College. Joe Salzburg also has been teaching an introductory course at night at PBCC and says he has to cut off enrollment weeks before classes begin because the demand is so high.

Palm Beach County also is on the verge of becoming home to the first major soundstage and production studio built in 30 years.

Former Screen Gems vice president Thorpe Shuttleworth is building Palm Beach Ocean Studios, a $3.5 million operation with a 20,000-square-foot sound stage. Construction began last month and when the first phase is completed next year, it may generate as many as 100 jobs.

"I think production anywhere in Florida is good for all of us, " said Elizabeth Wentworth, director of the Broward County Film and Television office.

The studio will focus on television programming, especially daytime programming. Television programming is something the Orlando area is more noted for, Reitzammer said, and South Florida is tops in fashion photography. The studio will shift some of the television business south.

"Not only for feature films to be done more expeditiously, but it gets South Florida into the television business," he said.

Florida may rank a distant third to California and New York in the number of feature films shot, considered the most accurate measure of production work, but the biggest problem is the state is perceived as a place for shooting scenes, not for production work, Earl said.

"The whole state still has the reputation of being a location site, not a production site," said Earl, whose jobs have ranged from dialogue coach for Miami Vice to karate teacher on a Nickelodeon series. She's been in the area off and on for 30 years and sees the change.

Production revenue in Palm Beach County was estimated at $34.7 million in 1994, employing 5,604 people. The Palm Beach County Commission will be considering making the Film and Television Commission an independent agency, something executive director Chuck Elderd says will help draw support from business to market the community to the entertainment industry.

Overall, the state's report estimated $454.7 million in revenue statewide and South Florida generated more than half, mostly in Dade County.

Florida needs to promote its own special features to get more business, not as a counterpart to Hollywood, reports a 1994 study by KPMG Peat Marwick, a Virginia based consulting firm that did an analysis of South Florida for the Metro-Dade Office of Film, Television and Print.

"How much production industry growth will occur in the South Florida area and what type of production will predominate depends on a number of factors ... the ability of the area to convince major forces behind this industry that the South Florida success story is not just a passing fad and the ability of the South Florida region to attain sufficient critical mass to generate its own production volume," the study said. "South Florida is on the verge of achieving critical mass, with its own production infrastructure and talent resources."

Betty Bowden's real name is Betty Rizzo, and she's been in the entertainment business off and on since 1955, including episodes on the television show You Are There. She moved to Florida in 1968.

"When I first came here, [the business) was pretty negligible, but I didn't look," said Bowden, now a real estate agent. "I wanted to get back into the business. I thought maybe I could give up real estate."